Dunhill/Peterson Similarities in Blends

[Pipelady20]

I've been smoking some of the Peterson (Dunhill) blends, and there are some I've yet to smoke. It looks like some of the blends are similar (such as Standard, EMP, and Nightcap). My question is if there's somewhere where we can see the general breakdown of the mixtures (example: 40/20/20%, 50/50%, 50/25/25%) of each tobacco). Any charts, articles or anything?

(Smoking Standard Mixture now.)

 

[prairiedruid]

Blend recipes are guarded as trade secrets.

 

[Pipelady20]

Blend recipes are guarded as trade secrets.

Ok, I had no idea. Thx

 

[BROBS]

Blend recipes are guarded as trade secrets.

Some are.. some aren’t. MacBaren lists a lot of their recipes. Though I’m sure there are many details left out.

 

[Pipelady20]

Some are.. some aren’t. MacBaren lists a lot of their recipes. Though I’m sure there are many details left out.

Thanks, good to know. My inquiry comes from seeing descriptions stating a tobacco with the likes of "50% latakia" and similar. I don't expect to see a complete recipe with the likes of how it's "cased, brand of whiskey, pressed for a month" descriptions like that. I was hoping for something general like a chart that gives us the basic breakdown besides "Virginia blend" but I was just being curious. Cheers.

 

[BROBS]

Thanks, good to know. My inquiry comes from seeing descriptions stating a tobacco with the likes of "50% latakia" and similar. I don't expect to see a complete recipe with the likes of how it's "cased, brand of whiskey, pressed for a month" descriptions like that. I was hoping for something general like a chart that gives us the basic breakdown besides "Virginia blend" but I was just being curious. Cheers.

tobaccoreviews.com will usually list the ingredients. it's not always 100% accurate on all things but those are usually correct.

macbaren has some of the details of their stuff on the web. a good example is the stockton page here:

Stockton | Mac Baren Tobacco Company

Stockton is a quality tobacco blend made using the best ingredients to ensure a great smoking experience. Discover Stockton.

mac-baren.com

Gawith breaks down some of their stuff but not much.. like Bosun Cut Plug and Conniston it described how much of what leaf.

 

[logs]

Figuring out Dunhill was always the worst. They were super-vague in their tin descriptions. When I was a beginner buying Dunhill back in the early 90's about all I could depend on was that whatever I bought from them was likely to be an English... other than that I had no clue. What could be more different than Nightcap and Royal Yacht? The tin gave no indication one was a lat bomb and the other a straight Virginia with some topping. You just had to buy it and find out. Thank goodness we have tobacco reviews now.

 

[greeneyes]

The folks making them before are still making them now. I'm not sure you would find a change in the formulae even if you were able to compare them.

 

[BROBS]

Figuring out Dunhill was always the worst. They were super-vague in their tin descriptions. When I was a beginner buying Dunhill back in the early 90's about all I could depend on was that whatever I bought from them was likely to be an English... other than that I had no clue. What could be more different than Nightcap and Royal Yacht? The tin gave no indication one was a lat bomb and the other a straight Virginia with some topping. You just had to buy it and find out. Thank goodness we have tobacco reviews now.

I was thinking this the other day. Tin descriptions are terrible at best, nonexistent is normal. If you were to just walk in a B&M blind.. it would be next to impossible to know what most of the blends even were.

 

[BROBS]

The folks making them before are still making them now. I'm not sure you would find a change in the formulae even if you were able to compare them.

I think she is saying just a breakdown of blend components. For example to compare how much Latakia in Standard Mixture vs Nightcap.

 

[Pipelady20]

I think she is saying just a breakdown of blend components. For example to compare how much Latakia in Standard Mixture vs Nightcap.

This is it exactly.

 

[petes03]

In my opinion, it’s not so much the ingredients that are secret as it is the process used to marry them. Some of the tobaccos are aged differently and cured differently before the final process. And in many cases the final process is closely guarded.

 

[logs]

I just think it's a different age now and people want more information about their blends. GL Pease and C&D are much more upfront about what goes into a blend. Pease almost delights in recounting how he arrived at his perfect formula. Older British firms didn't think like that--everything was a big mystery.

 

[Buckler]

Having this kind of information would help inform future purchases to head in or away from a particular blend based off of past experience. It would make the exploring more efficient, rather then ‘that’s a pretty picture I’ll try this one next’.

 

[Pipelady20]

GL Pease and C&D are much more upfront about what goes into a blend. Pease almost delights in recounting how he arrived at his perfect formula.

I've noticed this too about GLP and CD.

 

[Pipelady20]

Having this kind of information would help inform future purchases to head in or away from a particular blend based off of past experience. It would make the exploring more efficient, rather then ‘that’s a pretty picture I’ll try this one next’.

Exactly. I'm constantly buying 1oz blends to try if available to tweak my tastes. While I imagine my tastes will change over time, it would help to get a bigger picture of why I liked something backed up with a little more information than "that's spicy because of the perique; but wait this other one has perique and I can't tell its there."

 

[logs]

Tas

it would help to get a bigger picture of why I liked something backed up with a little more information than "that's spicy because of the perique; but wait this other one has perique and I can't tell its there."

Yes but subjective tasting notes are more important than you think. Even if you find out the percentage of tobacco in the blends you like, it won't always predict how it will taste for you. Perique is a good example because it can taste so many different ways. Plus half of the game is your mouth chemistry, which no one can predict. You sound like you're being very organized about the whole thing. That's good. It will make your progress go faster.

 

[mso489]

Proportion is a key to individual proprietary blends. Another key is sourcing, since the same varietal from different places would taste distinctly different. The blenders shouldn't give this out, or several matching blends at half the price would promptly appear. I think listing the constituent tobaccos, without proportions, is useful and fair to the consumer, but that's about it. The business is totally competitive, and truly sink or swim, so to have the blends we love, we don't get the recipes.

 

[Buckler]

Exactly. I'm constantly buying 1oz blends to try if available to tweak my tastes. While I imagine my tastes will change over time, it would help to get a bigger picture of why I liked something backed up with a little more information than "that's spicy because of the perique; but wait this other one has perique and I can't tell its there."

That makes heaps of sense!
I am right at the very beginning of my pipe smoking adventure. I have only smoked two blends. I have bought a variety of English blends to see what I like. But it seems I won’t be able to be especially methodical in future as it seems you are trying to do.

I have started a list whenever people have especially praised blends. They will often compare it with other blends. Sometimes with a ‘if you like this you’ll like x’, or ‘I liked x then I found this and it blows it out of the water’...
Perhaps a map could be built this way? ??

 

[bullet08]

They are all English blends. They will be similar in sense that they have Latakia, Virginia, and others. You will definitely notice "smokey" Latakia, and sweet Va. Most English blends are somewhat similar. But some will stand out more than the others. Ashton Artisan's Blend has more depth and complexity, and GLP Meridian has "savory" note.